
THaRT.PieF(son 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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THE CRISIS OF MISSIONS; or, The Voice Out 
OF THE Cloud. i6mo, paper, 35 cents; cloth, 
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EVANGELISTIC WORK IN PRINCIPLE AND 
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THE ONE GOSPEL; or, The Combination of 
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THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO. 

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r c 



STUMBLING STOiNES REMOVED 



FROM THE 



WORD OF GOD 



ARTHUR T. PIERSON 



^Gather out the stones. 




3*/!- 



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/ 



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NEW YORK 
THE^ BAKE:!^ & TAYLOR CO. 

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Copyright, 1891, by 
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A WORD OF PREFACE. 



We use the expression, '* Stumbling Stones/* 
merely by way of accommodation. The most 
devout and patient students of the Word of 
God fail to find inconsistencies, contradictions 
or real discrepancies in the Bible. All difificul- 
ties are due either to the imperfection of the 
medium of transmission, human language ; or 
to the imperfection of the receptacle of the 
truth, the human mind itself. Our limited cap- 
acity, or our limited point of view and range of 
vision, may account for apparent imperfections, 
obscurities and disagreements in the Divine 
Word. 

The purpose of this little book is not so 
much to reach those who accuse and assault 
the Inspired Word, as to help believers. That 
old Saint, Kleker, told D'Aubigne, that to 
remove one difficulty out of the way of a 
caviller only makes way for another ; and that, 
if one will only take Christ as a complete 
Saviour and make a full surrender to Him, 
difficulties will commonly vanish. Wc be- 



IV A WORD OF PREFACE. 

lieve that it is the heart that makes the the- 
ology ; and that most of our doubts may be 
ultimately traced to an '^ evil heart of unbelief '* 
that departs from the living God. 

Nevertheless even the most candid and 
reverent believer finds in the Word of God, 
especially in the English Bible, some difficul- 
ties or hindrances in the way of his understand- 
ing, if not of his faith ; and such disciples it is 
our humble aim to help : 

1. By removing unnecessary stumbling 
stones out of their way ; 

2. By enabling them to understand what 
may have been obscure ; 

3. By laying down certain laws or *' canons *' 
of Interpretation ; 

4. By exposing devices of Satan and other 
adversaries of the truth ; 

5. By showing the entire symmetry and 
self-consistency of the Truth itself. 

Where real contradiction exists, Error must 
be present. Either the error lies in what we 
mistake for the truths as a mirage is mistaken 
for a reality ; or the error lies in our own 
organs of vision ; our eye, being diseased, sees 
double where the object is single. A true be- 
liever runs no risk in calmly and resolutely 
examining into any alleged difficulty or dis- 
crepancy in the Bible. If one encounters a 
supposed ghost on a dark night, the best way is 



A WORD OF PREFACE. v 

to walk up to it, and look it squarely in the 
face. To flee from a supposed apparition 
may leave a lingering doubt whether the 
ghostly illusion were a reality or not : a bold 
touch would have dispelled both the illusion 
and the doubt. To wait patiently and to 
search diligently is to find even the most 
formidable difficulties vanish, and to see the 
error to be one of our own ignorance or mis- 
apprehension. Nay, it often happens that 
stumbling stones become stepping stones, and 
hindrances are changed to helps. 

Arthur T. Pierson. 

2320 Spruce St. Philadelphia Pa. 
October, 1890. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 
The Difficulties Stated — The Causes of Dis- 
crepancies. 

PART II. 
General Suggestions — The Laws of Inter- 
pretation^ ETC. 

PART III. 
The Uses of Discrepancies — Conclusion. 



STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 
FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 



PART r 



THE DIFFICULTIES STATED — THE CAUSES 
OF DISCREPANCIES. 

The so-called * discrepancies' of Holy 
Scripture may be classified as follows : 

First, verbal, or such as concern the 
words or letters of Scripture ; 

Secondly, historical, or such as concern 
the names of persons and places, num- 
bers, dates, and historical statements or 
events ; 

Thirdly, moral, or such as concern 
ethical precepts and principles, duties 
and relations ; and, 

Fourthly, doctrinal, or such as concern 
the direct doctrinal teaching of the word, 
especially as to the higher class of spirit- 



8 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

ual truths. The bibliography of this 
subject is quite extensive. Some fifty or 
more volumes have been published, 
which treat, more or less exclusively, this 
theme, one of which, by Mr. Haley, 
covers over five hundred pages. There 
are probably not less than five hundred 
other works which contain extended ref- 
erence to these discrepancies ; so that, in 
the effort to condense what needs to be 
written upon such a subject into a very 
brief compass, we find no little additional 
difficulty. But, as a bulky treatise 
would defeat our object, we shall simply 
group all the ' discrepancies ' together, 
and offer general suggestions and princi- 
ples, covering various particulars in each 
class. 

We begin, very naturally, by inquiring 
whence these apparent discrepa^icies come. 
What is their source? 

The first general class are those which 
come from variations in the mere letter 
of Scripture. 

I. Errors in Transcription, 

In the absence of the printing press all 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. g 

copies of the Word of God were of 
course the product of the manual labor 
of scribes. Prof. Norton estimates that, 
by the end of the second century, there 
were sixty thousand manuscripts of the 
Gospel in existence ; and, including man- 
uscripts of the Old Testament, millions of 
copies of God's Word have doubtless 
been made in the course of the ages. 
From seven hundred to one thousand 
Greek manuscripts are now extant, of 
which fifty are one thousand years old, 
and some few are one thousand five hun- 
dred years old, whereas the oldest exist- 
ing classic manuscript is not nine hun- 
dred. Of course the original manuscripts 
of the Bible have all disappeared, and 
God meant that they should, to save us 
from a similar idolatry to that which 
lifted the Brazen Serpent and Gideon's 
Ephod to divine honors. 

In producing exact copies, perfect 
accuracy would be impossible without a 
perpetual miracle of divine supervision, 
as great as that of original Inspiration. 
Even in printed books it is found imprac- 



lO STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

ticable to secure entire freedom from 
errors ; even when large rewards have 
been offered for their detection, new ones 
have been found after the two hun- 
dredth reading. How much more diffi- 
cult to secure absolute accuracy when the 
first form is also the final form and there 
is no chance to correct ''proof !" 

In manual transcriptions mistakes are 
therefore inevitable. 

1. Hebrew letters often closely resemble 
each other. 

There are at least eight pairs of letters, so 
nearly alike as to be constantly mistaken for 
each other, like the English b and d, c and e, 
f and old-fashioned s, (f) 1 and t. Old manu- 
scripts became faded and blurred, and this in- 
creased the liability of such errors, and mis- 
takes in names and figures easily arose in this 
way, where the context and general sense fur- 
nished no guide. 

2. It is probable that, both in the He- 
brew and Greek manuscripts, letters were 
anciently used for mimerals. 

Warrington thinks that the letters of the al 
phabet, taken in their order, represented nu- 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 1 1 

merical values, as follows, units, tens and 
hundreds up to 400; i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 
20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 200, 300, 400 ; 
that t\i^ five terminal letters supplied the num- 
bers representing the even hundreds, from 500 
to 900 inclusive ; and that the thousands were 
represented by affixing marks or points to 
those representing units, etc. 

Two sorts of mistakes might easily creep in ; 
one letter might be mistaken for another of 
different value ; or discrepancies might be in- 
troduced where the attempt was made to sub- 
stitute the full word for the letter. There is 
scarcely a case in which copyists are believed 
to have made any intentional change in the 
original text. In one case, where the name 
Manasseh appears instead of Moses, some have 
thought that some officious scribe made the 
substitution to save the disgrace, to the great 
Jewish Lawgiver, of recording the idolatry of 
his grandson (Judges xviii. 30). 

II. Errors m Ptinctuation. 

In the original manuscripts there were 
probably no punctuation marks. In fact 
some manuscripts were cursive, i. e. the 
words were run together with no space be- 
tween them. The translators have intro- 
duced punctuation marks, to make the 



12 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

sense obvious ; and, for convenience, 
division into chapters and verses. Of 
course all this belongs to the human, un- 
inspired, and therefore fallible element 
in the Modern Bible, and no objections, 
drawn from punctuation marks, or these 
arbitrary divisions, really lie against the 
Inspired Word of God, itself. 

There are not a few instances in which this 
punctuation may have introduced at least a 
very doubtful sense or construction. A few 
examples may be given. 

John xii. 27. " What shall I say ? Father, 
save me from this hour: but for this cause 
came I unto this hour.*' By substituting an 
iiiterrogation point for the colon, after the 
word ' hour,' the sense is made much more 
clear. 

Luke xiii. 24, 25. Omitting the period after 
the word * able,* or substituting a comma, we 
are taught that the risk lies in seeking to enter 
when it is too late. Compare Matthew xxv. 
i-io. 

Psalm cix. 6 to 19 inclusive. If these verses 
are put in quotation marks, as the 'words 
of hatred,' which, 'with a lying tongue,' the 
'adversaries* of David 'speak against him/ 
this Psalm is made no longer his imprecation 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 1 3 

of curses on their heads, but his appeal to God 
in reply to their maledictions. Then the sud- 
den change from the plural to the singular 
number, in verse 6 and following, is explained, 
and both the introductory and closing verses 
acquire a new and beautiful significance. Com- 
pare especially verses 28 to 31 with 1-3. 

Examples of at least doubtful division, where 
the sense is very seriously interrupted or ob- 
scured, might be multiplied. A few will suf- 
fice. 

I Corinthians xii. 31. There should here be 
no division of chapters. The ** more excellent 
way," which Paul shows, is the cultivation of 
Love; and a colon after the word ^way,* 
should be the only interruption to the sense. 
To introduce a new chapter breaks all con- 
tinuity. 

The connection between Chapters II. and 
III. of the Epistle to the Ephesians is similarly 
intimate ; and the argument is perfect only as 
the break is avoided. ^^ For this cause " refers 
back to the truth set forth in the previous 
Chapter. Compare also Hebrews iii. 14. The 
word ' therefore,* at the beginning of the fourth 
Chapter, depends upon the sentiment immedi- 
ately preceding. So xi., xii. 

III. Errors in Amplification. 

As translators have supplied piinctua- 



1 4 STUMBLING STONES RE MO VED 

tion points, so they have supplied words 
and phrases, to complete the sense or 
make the meaning obvious. As is well 
known, these supplied words are always 
indicated by the use of italics. The ignor- 
ant reader sometimes supposes that itali- 
cized words represent the emphatic words, 
and is perhaps betrayed into the error of 
the simple minded 'Dunkerd' preacher, 
who gravely read i Kings xiii. 27, thus : 
'* And he spake unto his sons, saying, 
Saddle me the ass. And they saddled 
him !'' 

As to these italicized words, it has 
been seriously questioned whether they 
are, in any case, needful, helpful or jus ti- 
/table. Where the original demands or 
implies them, they need not be italicized, 
since they are not really 'supplied* 
words ; where the original does not so 
justify them, to introduce them may 
sometimes be to introduce notions foreign 
to the meaning of the Word and the mind 
of the Spirit; and may therefore be un- 
warrantable tampering with the Inspired 
Word of God. At the very least, we 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 1 5 

must remember that all italicised words 
belong, like punctuation points and chap- 
ter-and-verse divisions, to the fallible ele- 
ment, and therefore can never become 
the basis of objection to anything but 
the work of translators. 

We append a few examples of supplied 
words. By reading the passages and omitting 
these italicized phrases, another meaning will 
often at once appear, and also a much clearer 
sense. In the examples given we omit the 
supplied words. 

Matthew xx. 23. ^^ But to sit on my right 
hand and on my left is not mine to give, but 
for whom it is prepared of my Father.*' 
So read, Christ does not limit his own 
power to give the chief places, save that it 
must be exercised in union with the 
Father. 

John ill. 34. '* For God giveth not the 
Spirit by measure " — doling out the supply as 
if his resources were limited. 

John viii. 6. *' But Jesus stooped down, 
and with his finger wrote on the ground." In 
Syria and the East, to this day, writing with 
the finger in the sand is a common method of 
teaching, as with us the slate and blackboard 
are used. It introduces a possiby unwar- 



1 6 STUMBLING STONES RE MO VED 

ranted conception, to add, *' as though he heard 
them not.'' 

James i. 25. *' Whoso looketh into the per- 
fect law of liberty and continueth/* The 
figure is that of a mirror, and the word ' con- 
tinueth ' may refer to the looking. We must 
not simply glance but gaze at ourselves as seen 
in that law, continue looking so that the im- 
pression may be permanent. 

Psalm xxii. i, 3, it, etc. Bishop Alexander 
calls this prophetic poem of the Crucified, a 
* Psalm of Sobs.' It represents the vicarious 
sufferer as in dying agonies, able only to artic- 
ulate a few words at a time : and the frag- 
mentary character of the utterances is one of 
the most remarkable features of the plaint. 
To supply words, and so make every sentence 
complete, interferes with the impression which 
the Spirit would convey. How much more 
pathetically majestic if translated literally! 

'' My God ! My God ! 
Why hast Thou forsaken me ! 
Far from helping me ! — 
Words of my roaring ! " — 
etc. 

We have no space for multiplying examples ; 
but refer the reader to a few additional cases 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 1 7 

where the omission of the supplied words will 
suggest a new and often higher sense. 

Deut. xxxii. 35. 

Psalm X. 4 ; xiv. i ; 1. 8 ; H. 12. 

Proverbs xxvii. 19. 

Isaiah xxvi. 19. 

Malachi iii. 10. '' Until failure of enough/* 
i. e. until the supply fails ! 

Mark xvi. 20. 

John XX. II. 

Hebrews xi. 21. 

2 Peter lii. 17. 

IV. Difficulties Incident to Translation. 

In all human language necessary im- 
perfection inheres ; and yet the Holy 
Spirit was compelled either to invent a 
new nomenclature which would have been 
unintelligible to man, or else to use that 
imperfect medium with which he is famil- 
iar. So far as language is merely the 
mould of thought, or thought is the mould 
of language, the two must correspond : 
and we shall find things, divine and spirit-' 
ual, inadequately conveyed by human 
words, and in some cases absolutely no 
word will be found fit to be the vehicle or 
mould of a divine conception. 



1 8 STUMBLING STONES RE MO VED 

From this general source proceed a 
great variety of infelicities, inaccuracies, 
and even apparent contradictions, that 
are purely linguistic and verbal. 

1. Material terms are necessarily em- 
ployed to express immaterial things : the 
spiritual is cramped and confined by the 
carnal wrappings. 

The word ' spirit ' from spiro, I breathe, 
means, in its Hebrew and Greek equivalents, 
literally wind or breath. To infer that the 
spirit of man or of God is simply breath, would 
be to limit a divine conception by the narrow lit- 
eralism of the best word that human language 
can furnish to convey the thought. 

When Jewish writers speak of the '* tongue 
of events," meaning thereby God's acts trans- 
lated into the language of historical occurrences, 
no one misunderstands the phrase. 

2. Figurative terms are also necessarily 
employed, but must not be literally con- 
strued. 

The Oriental habit of mind is peculiarly 
luxuriant and imaginative. Eastern idioms 
abound in bold and striking metaphors and 
even hyperbole. '' To construct dogmas out 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 1 9 

of such materials, would be like attempting to 
build a palace out of sunbeams and rainbows.*' 
As Prof. Park says, there is manifestly a wide 
gap between oriental minstrelsy and occiden- 
tal logic. 

3. Much language, applied to God, is 
really applicable only to man, is Anthro- 
pomorphiCy and Anthropopathic, i. e. , 
drawn from the human form and passions. 

When we read of the ^Fingers of God,* with 
which He wrote on the Tables of Stone ; the 
'Feet of God,* which rest on the earth as His 
footstool; the 'Eyes' and 'Eyelids of God,' 
which ' behold ' and ' try ' the children of men ; 
of the ' Nostrils of God,' into which the sweet 
incense of worship ascends, etc. , these terms 
are Anthropomorphic and must be so under- 
stood. 

Isa. iii. 13. The Lord standeth up to 
plead. 

Joel iii. 12. There will I sit to judge all 
the heathen. 

It would seem incredible that any one, even 
a caviller, could call such statements ' dis- 
crepancies.' This is an example of the uncan- 
dor and unfairness of much so-called ' criticism.' 
Such language is simply drawn from the habits 
of Oriental courts, where advocates stand up 



20 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

to pleady and judges sit down to pronounce 
sentence. God is likewise said to '' Come 
down," when He interposes in human affairs, 
which belong to a subordinate sphere : and 
such terms as '* ascend " and '^descend" are 
often used with reference to the comparative 
elevation of the subjects and objects to which 
the attention is turned. 

Most words are tropes, concealing a figure. 
Contradictions frequently disappear, as soon 
as we cease to insist on an absurd literalism. 

htvisible things may be clearly seen; 
(Rom. i. 20) and we may look at w^hat is 
unseen, (2 Cor. iv. 18.) 

4. Metaphors are often mixedy because 
one figure does not suffice to express the 
full meaning. 

Ps. xviii. I, 2. David calls the Lord, 
his " strength, rock, fortress, deliverer, buckler, 
horn and high tower.'' Here are at least 
seven different metaphors. The inconsistency 
is rhetorical but not real : in fact there is 
sublimity in the very mixture. Peter says 
*^ stablish, strengthen, settle you," and Paul 
says, '' rooted and grounded in love." One 
expression being inadequate, the wTiter leaps 
at once to another, that the combination may 
convey what neither would alone. 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 21 

5. Language of Appearance is close akin 
to figurative terms, and is always allow- 
able. 

When the sun is represented as * rising ' or 
* setting;' or the dew as 'distilHng' and de- 
scending from heaven/ we are not warranted 
either in construing these terms literally, or in 
objecting to them because of scientific inac- 
curacy. In this scientific age we use such 
terms while conceding their inexactness, be- 
cause they describe appearances and belong to 
the popular idiom. 

6. Variotis renderings of the same 
original word, lead to inevitable confu- 
sion. 

John XV. 4, 9, ir, one Greek word (//fi^w) is 
variously translated, abide, remain, continue, 
etc. 

I Cor. ii. 15, the same Greek word avaKpivFrai 
is translated discern, and judge. 

7. Words are sometimes invested by 
the reader with a wro7ig se7zse. 

^' God h angry with the wicked.** Ps. vii. 
II. 

He is the '* Ai'diorr " of evil, i Thess. iv. 6. 

Wrath is ascribed even to the '' Lamb.'* 
Rev. vi. 16. 



22 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

These and similar terms are to be used and 
understood in a higher sense than the ordinary- 
one. Anger is not, in itself, a sin : in fact, 
without holy indignation, there is no perfectly 
holy character. The verbs, * avenge ' and 
^revengey and the corresponding nouns, ^ven- 
geance and ^ revenge^ mean different things : the 
former verb and noun refer to a public gov- 
ernmentaly judicial act, which is necessary to 
the upholding of law ; [Jer. li. 56J while 
' revenge ' refers generally to a private, personal 
act of retaliation. There is a manifest and 
broad distinction between a ruler calmly re- 
quiting or recompensing evil, for public good, 
and an injured party passionately returning evil 
for evil, for private gratification. God is 
never vindictive but always vindicative, 1. e. 
He vindicates law. *' Odit errores, amat er- 
rantesT When wrath is ascribed to Him, we 
are to remember it is holy wrath and so a part 
of His infinite perfections. A magnetic needle 
has polarity, and by the same law it attracts 
and repels at the same pole. Benevolence is 
an attribute whose two poles are. Love and 
Wrath. By the sa^ne principle, God both loves 
holiness and hates sin ; and, because He is 
capable of holy complacence toward the good, 
must be capable of holy repulsion toward evil. 

The word, * hate ' is often used of a lesser 
love. Compare Rom. ix. 13. Luke xiv. 26. 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 23 

**God hardeiied Pharaoh*s heart." Exod. 
ix. 12. This implies in God no complicity 
with evil. He withdrew softening influences 
which were abused. Nay more : the same 
sun melts the wax, and bakes and cakes the 
clay; and so the same influences which soften 
and subdue the obedient, harden the rebellious. 
Pharaoh's wilfulness naturally produced the 
same effect as did God*s judicial infliction. 
Compare Exod. viii. 15, 32. 

In the narrative about David and the Am- 
monites, etc., in 2 Sam. xii. 31, it is said 
he ^^ put them tinder saws, harrows, axes/' and 
**made them pass through the brick-kiln." 
Sceptics unwarrantably construe this subjection 
of the people to certain forms of labor ^ as though 
it were meant that David cut them in pieces or 
burned them alive. In i Chron. xx. 3, the 
word ** ctit,'' is probably a mistake. A Hebrew 
word, as much like the other as ' cut ' is like 
* put/ and even more like it, is accidentally mis- 
taken for it. {Vayyasdr for vayyasem^ 

Paul says, ** concerning virgins I have no 
commandment of the Lord!' I Cor. vii. 25. 
Are we to understand him as disclaiming 
inspired guidance in the case ? or docs he 
simply mean tliat whereas, in counsels to the 
married^ he has referred them to an express re- 
corded commandment of the Lord, Mai. ii. 
14-16, Matt. xix. 6, 9 ; in tliis case there is 



24 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

no sitch written cormnandniefit to which to 
appeal? Compare i Cor. vii. 6, lo. When 
he says, *^ I think also that I have the Spirit of 
God/' I Cor. vii. 40, it might be rendered, I 
think that / also have the Spirit (^o,y^)^ 1. e. as 
well as others who claim to be your teachers, 
and are not inspired apostles.* So understood, 
instead of disclaiming inspiration, he rather 
affirms with peculiar emphasis the apostolic 
warrant for his instruction. 

The Israelites borrowed of the Egyptians, 
Exod. xii. 35. "Borrowed" probably means 
* demanded,* as the price of departure. 

" The bears tare forty and two of them,'' 
2 Kings ii. 24. 

It is not said that they killed ^cny of them*. 

Abraham was commanded to ''offer'' Isaac 
for a burnt offering. Gen. xxii. 2. 

It is not said, anywhere, that God com- 
manded him to slay his son, though the father 
so interpreted it. God intended that he should 
present Isaac as an offerings and that is what he 
did. It is probably part of the inspired per- 
fection of the Scriptures that words are used 
with such discrimination ; and it is therefore 
the duty of every reader to note exactly zvhat 
is saidy lest he carelessly introduce a conception, 
foreign to the real narrative. 

*J. H. Brookes, D. D. 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 2$ 

VI. Errors of Interpretation. 

Where no fault can reasonably be found 
with either the original or the translation, the 
reader s misapprehension may cause difficulty. 
We must therefore learn to interpret the 
language of the Bible intelligently and cor- 
rectly. Several facts are to be borne in mind. 

1. Words often change meaning, and 
are liable to be misunderstood. 

* Prevent * means to go before, or anticipate. 

1 Thess. iv. 15. 

' Let ' means not to let, i. e. to hinder. 

2 Thess. ii. 7. 

' Conversation * means course of life. Heb. 
xiii. 5. 

2. The same word is used in different 

senses. 

Compare Exod. xxxi. 17, with Isa. xl. 28. 
Though God '' fainteth not neither is weary/* 
yet '' He rested and was refreshed." ' Rest * 
sometimes means repose after fatiguing labor, 
or, as in this case, cessation from activity, the 
arresting of work. 

Adam was said to 'hide,' and Jonah to 
'flee^ from 'the Presence of the Lord.' Yet 
we are taught that to floe or to hide from His 



26 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

presence is impossible. Ps. cxxxix. 7. There 

is an omni-presence of God which equally per- 
vades all space ; but there is a manifested Pres- 
ence, such as, in the Garden of Eden or in 
the Sanctuary of old, was often visible and 
audible. We are told that God *' was not in 
the wind," the '' earthquake " or the ''fire;" 
but the meaning is that He was not specially 
and personally manifested in these forms, as 
He was in the *' still small voice " which fol- 
lowed them. I Kings xix. 11, 12. 

The word ''^ covet'' is used in Exod. xx. 17, 
of unlawful desire after that which is another's ; 
in I Cor. xii. 31, of a holy yearning to possess 
that which will benefit another. 

*' Christ was made sin for us," though He 
*' knew no sin," 2 Cor. v. 21, i. e. He was 
made a sin-offering, accounted judicially as a 
sinner. 

*' Tempt'' may mean to put to proof, to 
test : or to entice to sin. Compare Gen. xxii. 
I, Deut. vi. 16, and Jas. i. 13. 

^'Cleave" may mean, to cling to, or to part 
from, another. Rom. xii. 9. Zech. xiv. 4. 

^'Devoted" means consecrated to holy uses, 
or, sometimes, doomed, to destruction. 

The verb '' Jiave," is used in Matt. xiii. 12, 
both of nominal and of real possession. Mr. 
Haley cites a couplet from Dryden's Juvenal^ 
in illustration of a like usage : 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 27 

"Tis true poor Codrus nothing had, to boast; 
And yet poor Codrus all that nothing lost.'* 



To ^' seek early'' may also mean to seek 
earnestly. Compare Prov. i. 28, viii. 17. 

In one case the earnestness of the pious 
youth, and in the other of the despairing and 
hardened sinner, is referred to : a holy longing 
after God's favor is contrasted with a desperate 
effort to evade sin's penalty and God's judg- 
ment. 

The word "" eviV may mean perverse, in- 
iquitous, or merely adverse, calamitous. 

^^ Jealousy'' sometimes represents **the rage 
of man " a mean, malicious suspicion ; and, 
again, a holy affection which by its nature 
admits no rivalry. God is said to be ^'jealous " 
because He can allow no other object to share 
His people's devotion, without sanctioning 
idolatry. 

The phrase '^ the righteousness of saints" 
sometimes seems to refer to justification ; at 
other times to sajtctification ; and at others to 
resurrection life. It is of great importance 
that we learn to discriminate between these 
three. Justification is a divine act, imputing 
to us a righteousness co^nplete but not inherent, 
Sanctification is a divine work, imparting to us 
a righteousness inherent but not complete. Res- 
urrection life implies a finished work, when 



28 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

our righteousness is both inherent and com- 
plete. 

3. Words are used both in an absolutCy 
and in a relative sense. 

God who "changes not," is said to ''repent.*' 
There is no contradiction. It is because He 
absolutely changes not, that He relatively 
changes. If a movable body revolves about 
a fixed object, their relative positions are con- 
stantly changing : if both were moving, their 
relative positions might remain the same. 
When a man who has been turned from God 
turns toward Him, God is in effect turned also 
toward the man, though in fact there has been 
in God Himself no change. The attitude of the 
sinner relatively affects the attitude of God. 
We say, ** the sun shines " or "" does not shine/' 
when in fact it always shines ; but the position 
of the earth, or the interposition of the clouds, 
intercepts its rays. 

Christ says *' my Father is greater than I ; *' 
yet He also affirms '' I and my Father are 
one ; " and Paul claims for Him such equality 
with God as that the claim implies no robbery 
of God. Compare Jno. xiv. 28, Phil. ii. 5, 6. 
In one case, Christ speaks of His relative 
position as a Son, or as Messiah, the Sent one : 
in the other His absolute, essential equality is 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 29 

referred to, as one member of a firm, where all 
members are equal in the property invested 
and the rights implied, might still disclaim all 
authority in a certain department of the busi- 
ness, which by mutual agreement is committed 
to another partner. 

4. Words are used sometimes of the 
intenty and again of the effect^ of an act or 
course. 

** In so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire 
on his head." Rom. xii. 20. Here not the 
design^ but the result, of kindness to an enemy 
is indicated. The silversmith does not per- 
fectly melt the metal until, in addition to the 
fire beneath the crucible, he heaps the hot 
coals on the top of the silver. When we heap 
kindness on an enemy's head, we have him 
between two fires : the conscience of the man 
accuses him, and our tenderness combines with 
that to melt him. 

" I came not to send peace but a sword. '* 
Matt. X. 34, 36 ; i. e. though Christ's desire and 
design are to give peace, the effect of his com- 
ing is to make division and separation between 
those who serve God and those who serve Him 
not. We must discriminate between the object 
^nd the effect of His mission. 

When it is said that, at Nazareth, '' He coiUd 



30 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

do no mighty work " (Mark vi. 5), it is no con- 
tradiction of the fact that *' All Power " is his. 
Matt, xxviii. 18. He chooses to be limited, in 
His beneficent activity, by human unbelief. He 
could do mighty works among those Naza- 
renes, only by disregarding the bounds which 
He had wisely adopted for moral ends. 

Under this same subdivision we may include 
promises which are in some cases absolute^ and 
in others conditionaL 

VI. Freedom in the Use of Names. 

1. Multiplicity of names for the same 
person 

Peter is also called Simon, Cephas, Simon 
Bar-Jona, Simeon, Simon Peter, Simon son of 
Jonas. Joseph is also called Barsabas and 
Justus. Jacob is also Israel. Edom is Esau, 
Gideon is Jerubbaal. Saul is Paul. 

2. '^^sci^^oi persons are changed ; and 
names of persons and places are often 
interchanged. E. g., Edom. 

In the deficiency of other methods of re- 
cording and transmitting history, individual 
men and women became themselves marks, 
memorials or monuments of crises or turning 
points, or new departures. 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 3 1 

Thus Abram*s name was changed to Abra- 
ham, and Sarai's to Sarah. Gen. xvii. 5, 15. 

Jacob's name was changed for a similar 
reason to Israel. Gen. xxxii. 28. 

Neander's name before conversion was 
David Mendel. The change marks his regen- 
eration — the ^ new-man.' 

VI I. In writing numbers, oriental 
usage was often singular. 

1. In the expression of aggregates. 

Nordheimer says : Hebrew and Arabic al- 
low peculiar latitude in the use and expression 
of numbers. Both languages allow one to 
write units, tens, hundreds, thousands, in suc- 
cession or in reverse order. Much obscurity 
at times occurs, as if one should write, '* five 
and twenty and two hundred and ten thou- 
sand." This might be understood to mean an 
aggregate number as small as 10, 225, or as 
large as 210, 025. 

2. Round numbers were used for con- 
venience, or in symbolism. E. g., a 
week, called eight days. J no. xx. 26. 

VIII. Difference of dates is sometimes 
the source of apparent discrepancy or 
discordance. 



32 STUMBLING S7VNES REMOVED 

The disagreeing statements refer to different 
periods. What was once true ceases to be at 
a subsequent time. 

Compare Gen. i. 31, and Rom. viii. 22. 
When God first made all things, he pronounced 
everything ^Wery good." After sin's blight 
and curse came upon it, the whole creation 
groaned and travailed in pain together. 

IX. Different modes of reckoning. 

1. The civil and sacred years of the 
Hebrews differed. 

Abib, the first month of the sacred year, was 
the seventh month of the civil y^ds. Compare 
the ** old style *' and the *^ new style," eleven 
days apart. 

2. Fractional days and years were 
reckoned as whole ones. 

With the Rabbins, the very first day of a 
year sometimes stood for the whole year. — 
Lightfoot. Parts of a day were reckoned for 
the whole: e. g. , Christ's *^ three days" in the 
grave, though He appears to have been in the 
sepulchre a part of the sixth, the whole of the 
seventh and a part of the eighth. 

X. History in Bible usage is often 
made subordinate to prophecy and sym- 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 33 

holism. In other words the historical 
accuracy is of less account than the pro- 
phetical or symbolical or ethical teaching 
which the history expresses and embodies. 

E. g., IsraeFs history, as a nation, is not 
counted on the strict historical scale, but on the 
prophetic. When God's ancient people re- 
lapsed into idolatry and virtual apostasy, and 
were given over into captivity, their normal 
and prophetic history stopped : they were not 
reckoned as having any history. Only when 
such a principle is understood and applied to 
the record, can we make out the biblical com- 
putations of time, as applied to this elect 
nation. 

We notice various cycles of 490 years, or 
ten Jubilees, which seem to constitute a sort 
of unit oi measurement in the Old Testament. 
The 480 years of i Kings vi. i, between Israel's 
going forth and Solomon's temple building, do 
not count, as a recent writer has observed, 
the seven periods of servitude. The actual 
time is 611 years. Deducting for servi- 
tude 131 years, we have 480. Then add, for 
building and furnishing the temple, 10 years, 
and we have 490. 

From that period to the return from Babylon, 
in the time of Nehemiah, is 560 years. Deduct 



34 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

for captivity, 70 years, and we have again 
490. 

So the 490 years in the seventy Heptades 
of Dan. ix. cannot be made out accurately, 
unless we omit the periods of interrupted 
fellowship with God and disobedience to His 
will. In fact the crucifixion of Christ appears 
to have interrupted the last '*week," and at least 
half of it seems to be the prophetical '* three 
and a half years/' *' forty and two months,'' or 
1260 days of the Apocalypse. 

XL One event or truth or subject has 
different sides and aspects. We must get 
the point of view, and even the plane of 
thought, occupied by the sacred writer or 
speaker. 

I. Truth is many-sided. 

Every truth or fact has at least two faces. 
To look at it from one direction or side, only, 
gives us only a half truth, which, if we consider 
it the whole, is a half error. Apposite truths 
are not opposites. There is no antagonism 
between them, but rather complementism : 
they are the hemispheres which together com- 
plete the sphere. 

Hence truths that at first appear to conflict 
may have often the highest harmony and be 
necessary to each other. 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 35 

Man IS at the same time mortal and immor- 
tal. He may be buried, and yet it is equally 
true that he cannot be : or, as Socrates said, 
** You may bury me if you can catch me'' 

2. Character has complex relations. 

Christ is at once a lion and a lamb, Rev. v. 
5, 6 ; a priest and victim, Heb. viii. i, ix. 26-28 ; 
a shepherd and sheep, Jno. x. 11, Acts. viii. 32 ; 
the door to the fold and the pastor to the flock, 
Jno. X. 7. II. 

3. Different experiences and conditions 
may pertain to the same person, at the 
same time. 

Christ^s peace was the perfect peace of God, 
even while he sweat as it were great drops of 
blood. 

Dr. Payson in dying was both in intensest 
agony and intensest ecstasy. 

4. The same stibject may be treated 
from different points of approach and 
survey, for different ends. 

Thus Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, each 
writing for a different class of readers, — Jews 
Romans, Greeks, and believers in general, will 
each emphasize a different aspect of the com- 
plex character of Jesus. 



36 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

Matthew lays stress on Him as Messiah — 
King of the Jews. Mark lays stress on Him 
as mighty God, miracle worker. Luke lays 
stress on Him as the Son of man. John lays 
stress on Him as the Son of God. Compare 
the books of Kings and Chronicles ; one being 
the annals of the Kingdom, the other the 
history of the Hierarchy. 

For similar reasons, some authors may fol- 
low the chronological^ while others follow the 
logical^ order; others, without regard to his- 
torical connection or sequence, may group 
ethical teachings together. 

5. Consequently, to avoid partial and 
incomplete views, we must compare scrip- 
ture with scripttire until each half truth 
finds its complementary half. 

The parable of the "Pounds'* and of the 
'' Talents " must be taken together. Thus 
combined they present the whole law of God's 
administration of gifts. Where gifts are equal, 
but unequally improved, the rewards are un- 
qual: where gifts are unequal, but equally 
improved, the rewards are equal. Compare 
Luke xix.. Matt. xxv. 

In Luke xv., we have not three parables, 
but one parable with three forms of presenta- 
tion. The first and second emphasize God's 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 37 

part in recovering the lost sinner ; the third 
brings to the front mans part both in wander- 
ing and return. 

Paul emphasizes/d2/if//j ; James, works. There 
is no conflict. Paul was rebuking Pharisaic 
dependence on self-righteous works. James 
was contending against antinomian dependence 
on a mere creed. James probably uses the 
word ^'justify" in the sense of manifesting or 
proving. Thus faith justifies the soul, works 
justify the faith. 

XI I. Co7idensation of narratives ac- 
counts for some incongruities. 

1. For the sake of brevity, or because 
a specific purpose, which is controlling, 
demands only the salient points of a 
narrative, a few characteristic features 
are presented and the account is fragmen- 
tary. Were all the missing links fur- 
nished, no real difficulty would remain. 

2. The imagination or hasty inference 
of critics may often supply an incongru- 
ous link where God has left an unfilled 
vacancy. 

Some professedly religious teachers have 
shocked the sensibilities of all true and rever- 
ent believers by using such phrases as the 



38 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

** errors/' '* mistakes *' and even '' immoralities *' 
of scripture. 

For example, Exod. xxi. 24, '* An eye for an 
eye," etc., is adduced as a scriptural sanction, 
justifying private revenge and retaliation of 
injuries. But who is authorized to say that 
this authorizes the exaction of private and 
personal vengeance ? May it not be the law 
by which the judges were guided in the judi- 
cial infliction of perialtyl The brief narrative 
leaves many gaps to be supplied. In Patri- 
archal times, with imperfect legislation and 
government, such penalties may have been the 
most salutary preventives of acts of violence, 
and especially of maiming. 

XIII. Different events or persons may be 
confused on account of similar features. 

On a larger or smaller scale, history is con- 
stantly repeating itself. Abram twice equiv- 
ocated concerning Sarah ; Isaac imitated his 
father's example, in the case of Rebekah. David 
twice and in very similar circumstances spared 
Saul's life, etc. 

There were, in modern times, two Jonathan 
Edwards, father and son. Both were grand- 
sons of clergymen and, themselves, clergymen. 
Both were pious and precocious youths, fa- 
mous scholars, and tutors for equal periods in 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 39 

their respective colleges. Both succeeded, in 
their respective charges, their maternal grand- 
fathers, were dismissed on account of peculiar 
religious opinions ; were again settled over con- 
gregations singularly attached to them, and 
employed leisure hours in favorite studies, and 
in preparation, for publication, of works of 
value. Both left their parishes for college 
•presidencies, and died shortly after inaugura- 
tion, with but one year's difference in their 
respective ages, one being fifty-six, the other 
fifty-seven; and both, on the first sabbath of the 
fatal year, preached from the same text, '* This 
year thou shalt surely die." (Haley, p. 27). 

Modern critics who seek to prove that simi- 
lar biblical narratives are a confusion of his- 
torical facts, and refer to the same person or 
event, can in no case adduce by comparison of 
scriptural accounts any parallel to the coinci- 
dent features of these two remarkably similar 
lives and careers. And were the methods of 
the '* Higher Criticism " adopted in this case, 
some may yet arise who will seek to prove 
that there was after all but one Jonathan 
Edwards ! 



XIV. Special laws or principles apply 
to the Interpretation of Prophecy. 

Prophecy is the language of the ftcture. 



40 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

It is a well known fact that as we look 
ahead, in a direct line, certain optical 
illusions are the result : 

First, Perspective : objects at different 
distances are seen in one limited field of 
vision and lying within the same narrow 
arc. 

Secondly, Foreshortening : objects, far 
separated from us and from each other, 
appear near and closely related ; what is 
stretched out over vast length, is seen 
shortened — hence the term '' foreshorten- 
ing,'' to express the apparent shortening 
from the fore-view. Only by experience 
does the mind learn to detect and cor- 
rect the errors of the eye. Similar 
illusions pertain to the careless reading 
of prophecy. 

I. In prophecy we often see two or 
more events of a similar character out- 
lined by a common profile. One outline 
properly portrays two events, one on 
a smaller, and the other on a larger scale ; 
one nearer, the other more remote. 

E. g., Matt. xxiv. where the destruction of 
Jerusalem is the type of the End of the Age, 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 41 

and prophecies concerning both are closely 
intertwined because one general profile answers 
for both. 

2. Events may appear in a common 
field of vision, all of which are future, 
which and, as they occur, will be seen to 
be marked by many distinct and distin- 
guishing features. 

3. Future events, far separated in 
point of time, may be so mingled on the 
horizon of prophecy, as to appear, like 
mountains in a range, near to each other. 

4. History may be communicated pro- 
phetically, i. e. by a backward instead of 
a forward vision. 

Hugh Miller believed that the six days of 
creation were revealed to Moses after some 
such manner, as a series of spectacular or 
dramatic scenes, to be interpreted after the 
manner of prophecy. 

XV. There is a Progress in Revelation, 
from Genesis to the Apocalypse. 

I. Things, veiled at first, even when 
revealed in form, were afterward fully 
unveiled as revelation became clearer. 



42 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

This is the force of the word, ''mystery," 
in the New Testament. 

And here we may possibly find the key to 
many so-called discrepancies. 

E. g., quotations from the Old Testament 
Hebrew or the Septuagint, or Greek Alexan- 
drian version, are found in the New Testament 
in a modified form. Sometimes the New 
Testament writers, and even our Lord, have 
been charged with '' inaccuracies.'* 

These verbal changes have been explained 
by some, on the theory that the inspiration of 
the Bible extends not to the '' words, but to the 
concept,'' or thought ; or that New Testament 
writers take liberties with scripture and modify 
their quotations as modern authors might, in 
citing passages from Shakespeare or Milton. 
Such ^ explanations ' are too loose and only 
increase our embarrassment. We venture to 
suggest a more reverent method of accounting 
for such changes, viz. : that, where New Testa- 
ament authors, in quoting, adopt the Sep- 
tuagint version or change the exact language of 
the original Hebrew, the Spirit guided them 
so to do, in order to bring more clearly to view 
the inspired meaning of sacred words. 

Oftentimes a reason may be discovered for 
such modification. In Heb. xi. 40, i Pet. i. 
II, 12, etc., we are taught that Old Testament 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 43. 

writers themselves wrote much that they did 
not themselves understand, and that was left 
on record for after ages to interpret. May it 
not be that, when New Testament writers are 
led by the Spirit of God to quote these words, 
they are also led in some cases to modify them 
so as to throw upon the original quotation 
the new light of a more perfect day ? Com- 
pare Ps. xl. 7-8, with Heb. x. 5-10. Only 
after our Lord became incarnate, could it be 
understood how He came to do God*s will "in 
a body prepared." 

Compare Isa. Ixi. i, 2, with Luke iv. 18, 19. 
Mai. iii. i, with Mark i. 2, '' before Thy face.** 

2. There is likewise a progressive revela- 
tion of morality. 

The ethical standard of the gospel age is far 
in advance of the Levitical : and the rule of 
conduct must be graduated and estimated by 
the fuller, clearer revelation of duty and of love. 

" To him that knoweth to do good and doeth 
it not, to him it is sin.** Jas. iv. 17. '' If ye 
know these things, happy are ye if ye do 
them.** Jno. xiii. 17. 

" The times of this ignorance God winked at.** 
Acts xvii. 30. 

Such texts as these teach us that : 



z^4 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

The object of knowledge is practice ; and 
The scope of practice is knowledge. 

The rule of duty is relative : *' To whom 
much is given, of him will much be required ; *' 
more light demands better life. 

Patriarchs, in practising polygamy, decep- 
tion, human servitude ; in inflicting penalty 
without legal process, etc., are not to be judged 
by the New Testament principles not in their 
day clearly revealed. Things but dimly seen if 
at all at dawn, are clearly and boldly revealed 
at noon-day. 

3. There is particularly a Progressive 
Revelation as to missions, or the duty of 
believers to the unsaved about them. 

It is true that the Bible is throughout a 
missionary book. Missions are taught in the 
Old Testament, but it is as in a mirror, darkly, 
dimly, enigmatically, as truth is taught in 
parables. Practically the old time saints did 
not conceive of God's people as having an 
aggressive mission to '' make disciples of all 
nations,'' nor did they conceive of other nations 
as subjects of converting grace. To them, the 
heathen Avere simply obstacles to the prosperity, 
progress and even existence, of the one God- 
fearing, elect people ; and even Peter the 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 45 

apostle had to learn, by a thrice repeated vision 
on the housetop, that the old exclusiveness 
must be broken down before the inclusiveness 
of the christian spirit. 

Much of the so called * vindictive spirit ' of 
the ** Imprecatory '' Psalms and prophetic utter- 
ances should be interpreted as the breathing of 
a holy jealousy for God, and a devout desire 
to have all foes of the true faith destroyed, or 
at least dispersed. Compare Ps. lix. 11. 



46 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 



PART II. 

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS. LAWS OF INTER- 
PRETATION, ETC. 

We now add some general remarks, 
intended to be suggestive especially as 
to the principles upon which biblical 
studies should be pursued ; and we lay 
down certain obvious laws of interpreta- 
tion and canons of criticism. 

I. The Bible is imperial in source, 
divine in authority, original in contents, 
and infallible in teaching. But it abounds 
in mysterious truths, and is often para- 
doxical in statement. 

Both the mystery and the paradox are 
necessary features of the Word of God, 
as the Book itself concedes. But it does 
not follow that what we cannot solve 
is insoluble or absurd. Deut. xxix. 29. 
I Cor. ii. II. 

II. Apparent discrepancies are insepar- 
able from the Word of God. 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 47 

The natural universe abounds in inscrutable 
mysteries and seenning contradictions. Nature 
is the arena of perpetual conflict. With all 
the undeniable evidences of design, there are 
occasional monstrosities; and, side by side with 
proofs of benevolence in the Creator, there 
are gigantic forms of disaster and destruc- 
tion. 

So in the Bible. The Trinity and Unity of 
Godhead ; the Sovereignty of God and the 
freedom of man ; the Divine Immutability 
and the promises to praying souls ; — paradoxes 
Hke these inhere in the nature of God and of 
divine truth, and in the limited faculty and 
knowledge of man. 

That God ever began to be is impossible 
and inconceivable ; yet that God had no 
beginning is equally an inscrutable mystery, 
for how did He ever reach the present stage of 
His existence ! If an Eternity is already passed, 
why may not an Eternal future reach its end ? 
Whoever attempts to think on such themes 
will soon learn that there are limits to human 
reason. The idea of succession must not 
enter into our conception of Eternity ; yet, of 
duration without succession we cannot now 
conceive. 

III. We must settle the limits of In- 
spiration. 



48 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

Much of the Word of God consists of simply 
an inspired narrative, in which all that Inspira- 
tion covers or guarantees is the accuracy and 
veracity of the record. This principle seems 
to us so obvious, that, like an axiom, it needs 
only a statement. One may give a most exact 
and truthful account of what has taken place, 
while disapproving the whole transaction 
which is recorded. We must therefore in 
every case notice the authorship and authority 
of all statements or sentiments found in the 
sacred book. 

''Verbal Inspiration" is to some persons a 
very obnoxious term, but when it is properly 
understood we see no ground of objection to 
it. It means only this, as we use it : that the 
Inspiring Spirit guided, guarded and governed 
the very language in zvhicli God's thought was 
expressed by holy meUy who not only thought^ 
but ''spake as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost." Who is there that holds every word of 
the Bible to be in the same sense, inspired? 
When Satan says, " Ye shall not surely die ; " 
when Job and his three friends discuss the pro- 
blem and philosophyof evil; when the blind man, 
whose eyes were opened by Christ, argues with 
the Pharisees ; when, in a word, the Bible 
narrates human events or records human utter- 
ances in which God is not represented either as 
acting or speaking through man, inspiration 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 49 

covers only the essential accuracy of the narra- 
tive. But when God directs a course to be pur- 
sued, or himself guides an utterance, the 
sanction of His infallible authority is thus given. 
We are not unduly jealous that ^* degrees of 
inspiration '' be disallowed, provided that the 
lowest degree of inspiration shall guard infal- 
libility. For without this the Bible becomes 
simply the best of books ; and loses all its divine 
character as the final court of appeal — the Judge 
which, when wit and wisdom fail, ends the 
strife. Men crave, and will have, a final 
arbiter. 

We are more and more impressed with the 
exactness and accuracy of Scripture. When, 
for instance, Matthew records the direct ful- 
filment of a specific prediction he says: **that it 
might be fulfilled which was spoken by the pro- 
phet;'' but when he refers to Christ's hailing from 
Nazareth, he says: ''that it might be fulfilled 
which was spoken by the prophets,'' (plural) 
'' He shall be called a Nazarene '' — for not in the 
writings of any one prophet, but rather in the 
drift of all prophecy is this forecast found. 
And so, on the day of Pentecost, Peter does not 
say, " then vjdiS fulfilled WidX which was spoken 
by the prophet Joel ; '' but, '* this is that zvhich 
was spoken " — for, although the outpouring of 
Pentecost finds its only explanation in Joel, the 
fulfilment of that prophecy is yet to come, 



50 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

when the Spirit, then poured out on all dis- 
ciples^ shall be '' poured out upon ^W fleshy 

Two Greek words are translated ^' speech/' 
*' discourse " or *' saying," {7.oyog, priua) yet only 
one (Zoyoc) is ever applied to Christ. If God 
did not guide the words used, why were such 
distinctions so carefully preserved ? And this 
is but one case out of hundreds familiar to any 
Bible student. There are ''concepts" of God 
which no existing Greek words could express, 
and a new nomenclature had to be created, or 
new meanings attached to formerly existing 
words. The New Testament must have a 
glossary of its own ; for a classical dictionary 
would not suffice. The more deeply we im- 
merse ourselves in the study of the original 
Scriptures, the more will the divine choice of 
words impress us. 

There are certainly five passages of Scripture 
which may be cited as giving no uncertain 
sound on the subject of "Verbal Inspiration." 
(Compare Heb. xii. 27, John x. 34-36, Gal. 
iii. 16, Gal. iv. 9, and John viii. 58.) In the 
first, the argument turns on the significance of 
di singXt phrase ; in the second, on the inviola- 
bility of a single word] in the third, on the 
use of a singular, instead of a plural number ; 
in the fourth, on the passive, instead of the 
active, voice of a verb ; and in the fifth, on the 
use of the present, instead of the past, tense of 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 5 1 

the verb. Taking the five together, we are 
taught that '^ the Scripture must not be 
broken," so far as to change di phrase, a wordy 
the iitwtber of a noun, or the voice or tense of a 
verb. If that is not verbal inspiration — a 
divine oversight extending not only to '* con- 
cept," but to language — our *^ scholarship " is 
entirely at fault, and we are glad that it is ! 

Of course, no inspiration can be claimed, in 
any such sense, for the various translations or 
versions of the original Scriptures. Human 
language is but a mirror or camera, before 
which we place the Word of God, to catch its 
reflection or image. The reflection or image 
will be imperfect, just so far as the mirror, or 
the camera, with its lenses and sensitive plates, 
is imperfect; yet for all practical purposes, 
these translations and versions are as faithful 
and accurate reproductions as the reflected 
image and the photographic likeness, which 
are but the '' counterfeit presentments '* of the 
man, and not the man himself ; and such trans- 
lations do not seriously mislead any candid 
reader. 

IV. The Inspiration of Scripture must 
certainly secure inerrancy and infallibility; 
otherwise every man is at liberty to 
determine for himself what he accepts or 
rejects. 



52 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

Some who deny the inerrancy of Scripture, 
concede that these '^errors are all in the cir- 
cumstantials, and not in the essentials/' But 
who shall decide what are '' essentials " and 
what ^'circumstantials?'' As a huge door 
turns upon a very small hinge, stupendous 
events hang upon what is seemingly insignifi- 
cant. In God's universe there are no little 
things. If we admit errors in the original 
Scriptures, any modern Jehudi may, with his 
penknife, cut out from the sacred scroll what- 
ever he pleases ; and on the '^ authority " of 
his reason, and perhaps, of his '* church," decide 
that the exscinded part belongs not to ** essen- 
tials" but to ''circumstantials." 

Current popular phraseology which is known 
to be scientifically inaccurate, may find its 
way into the Bible simply as a prevailing 
idiom of speech. It is common to speak of the 
" Battle of Bunker Hill," though every reader 
of our history knows that Breed's Hill was the 
actual scene of the battle. The phrases " ris- 
ing and setting sun," "dew descending " from 
heaven, etc., though found in the Word of 
God, argue no essential error, because these 
current forms of speech, — the "language of 
appearances " — are universal even where known 
to be scientifically inaccurate. 

Each apparent error in the Word of God 
must be accounted for by itself. Many errors 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 53 

may be traced to sources already indicated, and 
possibly some we may not now be able to 
trace. But to admit the principle that the 
'^ scriptures abound in errors, inaccuracies, mis- 
takes and immoralities " is to destroy the value 
of the Bible as the Word of God. 

V. We must come to the study of the 
Word of God with clear and discriminat- 
ing minds, 

1. Our tests must be sensible, rational 
tests. 

In Heb. vi. 18, we are told that it is ** impossi- 
ble for God to lie.'' But again we are told in 
Matt. xix. 26, that *^ with God all things are 
possible." There is no contradiction. It is only 
the silly caviller who cries out, '' God cannot be 
omnipotent, because He cannot lie.'' This is 
no limitation of God's power; for power can be 
tested only within the proper sphere and range 
of power. The impossibility of God's lying is 
not a physical but a moral impossibility, and 
if the same impossibility existed in some 
cavillers, such a dishonest objection and dis- 
ingenuous argument would never have been 
brought forward. 

2. We must use sanctified common 
sense. 



54 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

God knows all men, omnisciently ; yet He 
says of Abraham, ^' Now, I know that thou 
fearest God,'* etc., as though it were a new 
discovery. Gen. xxii. 12. Here He means 
that He had verified, by experiment, Abra- 
ham's faithfulness ; it was an eventual know- 
ing. So when God is said to have ** remembered 
Noah" (Gen. viii. i), it is not implied that 
He had ever forgotten him ; but there is 
indicated and recorded an active remembrance, 
evinced in what He did to bring Noah again 
out of the ark in safety. 

3. In studying the Divine anger against 
sin, v^e must beware of attributing to 
God a merciless severity, because He 
judicially destroys the ungodly. 

Mercy to others sometimes makes severity 
to offenders the only course compatible with 
either justice or love to the universe at large. 
Chief Justice Hale said, '' When I am tempted 
to be merciful to offenders, let me remember 
that there is also a mercy due to my country.** 
Prince Eugene never pardoned certain of- 
fenders, whom the Duke of Marlborough gen- 
erally dealt with leniently. But it was found 
on comparison of records that, with all his 
laxity, the duke had been compelled to hang 
many more such offenders than the prince, 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 55 

because the duke's laxity encouraged such to 
hope for immunity from penalty. We must 
beware of tmregenerate notions of benevolence, 

4. We must learn to distinguish be- 
tween what is literal and what is spirit- 
uaL 

Many difficulties arise from confusion 
here : on the one hand we may literalize 
what is to be spiritually interpreted, or 
we may spiritualize what is to be literally 
understood. 

For example, *' Israel,'* " Zion," and ''the 
church" are often used by us as though they were 
equivalent expressions. Paul draws in i Cor. x. 
32, a distinction which, if always borne in 
mind, will greatly assist in Bible study: ''The 
Jews, the Gentiles, and the Church of God " 
are the three factors, never to be confounded 
in the study of the Word. 

When we are told to " call no man your 
father upon earth" (Matt, xxiii. 9), to under- 
stand this literally would be to forbid any 
child to address his father as such ! When we 
are told, " swear not at all" (Matt. v. 34), lit- 
erally construed, this would forbid an "oath for 
confirmation" in a court of justice. Paul writes 
(i Tim. vi. 16), that God "only hath immor- 



s 



5$-, Sl^UMBLING STONES REMOVED 

\ tality ; *' does he mean that the human soul, 
the angels, and even the Lord Jesus, are not 
immortal ? When, in Rom. xvi. 27, we read 
of " God only wise," are we to infer that there 
^^' is no such thing as a wise man ? 

Annihilationists argue from the phrase in 
Ps. xxxvii. 9, 34, that '* evil doers shall be cut 
off'' (karath), that they are utterly to /mi"/^. 
But this same word is used of Messiah — Dan. 
ix. 26. 

Cardinal Bellarmine argued from two texts, 
John xxi. 16, *^ feed my sheep," and Acts x. 
13, ^'rise — kill and eat," that the successors of 
Peter, the Roman Pontiffs, have a double 
duty — to feed true believers and to kill heretics. 
Why did he not go to the full length of his 
literalism, and insist that the popes should 
" eat " the heretics they '' kill ? " (See Haley, 
280). 

V. We must discriminate between a 
part and the whole. A part neither in- 
cludes nor excludes all the rest which 
belongs to the complete form. 

Take for example the Inscription on the 
Cross. The full form was this : 

''THIS IS JESUS OF NAZARETH, 
THE KING OF THE JEWS." 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 57 

Of these ten words, Mark records five, Luke 
seven, Matthew and John, each, eight ; but no 
two evangehsts give either the whole inscrip- 
tion, or select the same words from the whole. 
To assume that any one intends to give the 
whole inscription will of course make har- 
mony impossible ; but to assume that each 
gives so much, and such a part, of the whole 
as suits the precise object of his narrative, 
relieves the various accounts from all antago- 
nism or inaccuracy. 

VI. Exceptions do not invalidate a rttlcy 
they rather prove it. This is a common 
canon of all criticism, and has numerous 
applications to the contents of Scripture. 

VII. Hypotheses may be of great value, 
in unlocking mysteries and obscurities, 
and settling doubts. 

It has long been an established law of all 
scientific inquiry, that, wherever a supposition 
meets all the facts of a given case and removes 
all objections, it may be safely adopted as the 
solution. Kepler sought to find the true theory 
of the universe, and applied eighteen successive 
hypotheses before he discovered the Harmonic 
Laws. His final hypothesis answered all con- 
ditions, like a perfectly fitting key in a lock, 



58 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

and it was admitted as the true solution of 
planetary orbits, etc. Upon the basis of a mere 
supposition the old Ptolemaic theory of the 
universe was finally overturned and the true 
nature of planetary motion discovered. 

In the study of Scripture truth, let us not be 
driven from a satisfactory Jiy pot lie sis which 
serves as an explanation, because our adver- 
saries clamor for *' positive '* or *' mathemati- 
cal " proofs. The burden lies with them, to 
prove the hypothesis untenable and the solu- 
tion unsatisfactory, 

VIII. The fact, the nahtre and the 
uses of Paradox in Scripture, should be 
carefully noted. 

A Paradox is an apparent contradic- 
tion where real harmony exists ; a 
seeming absurdity which is still a fact, or 
a truth. The famous ''Hydrostatic" 
and ''mechanical" paradoxes will illus- 
trate this principle. 

There are in Scripture three sorts of 
paradoxes. 

I. Th^ Proverbial. Proverbs xxvi. 4, 5. 



" Answer a fool, according to his folly ; " 
" Answer not a fool according to his folly." 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 59 

The reconciliation is plain : there are cases 
in which a course, proper at other times, is 
unwise. A fool may ask a question, to answer 
which may be to identify one's self with his 
folly : again he may ask a question, to answer 
which may be to show him his folly. 

2. The Doctrinal. 

Philippians ii. 12, Work out your own salva- 
tion, for it is God which worketh in you both 
to will and to do. 

No man can come to me except the Father 
draw him : 

Ye ivill not come to me, etc. John vi. 44 ; v. 
40. 

3. The Prophetical. 

Isaiah liii. abounds in these — there are in 
this chapter at least twelve : 

Christ was a Root out of dry ground, yet 
fruitful ; Christ was without form or beauty, 
yet God's elect Servant ; Christ was despised 
and rejected, yet the accepted Messiah ; Christ 
was the Suffering and Dying, yet Living Sav- 
iour ; Christ was without generation, yet having 
numerous Seed ; Christ was making grave with 
the wicked, yet with the rich , Christ was in 
adversity, yet in prosperity ; Christ was de- 



6o STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

feated and despoiled, yet conquering and 
despoiling ; Christ was cut off in the midst of 
days, yet prolonging his days ; Christ was 
condemned himself, yet satisfying many, etc., 
etc. 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 6l 



PART III. 

THE USES OF DISCREPANCIES. 

We now approach one final question ; 

Do these so called Discrepancies serve 
any Providential purpose? 

We cannot believe that they are wholly 
accidental ; and a careful and reflective 
study will show us that they do answer 
certain very important ends. A few of 
these it may be well to mention. 

I. These apparent discrepancies serve 
first of all to show us that the Author of 
the Bible has guarded even its text from 
essential corruptions. 

How little all these discrepancies amount to 
in the aggregate, is amazing. With all these 
extant manuscripts and all the various sources 
whence they emanate, the text of the scriptures 
is in all vital matters essentially unimpaired. 

The variations are numerous but unimpor- 
tant. They consist of differences in orthog- 
raphy, in the selection and collocation of 



62 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

words, and other minor matters. In the He- 
brew manuscripts over three quarters of a mill- 
ion of various readings may be counted, as to 
consonants alone, and so we may say, in propor- 
tion, of the New Testament. But they are of 
little or no account in the main, and do not 
affect the sense any more than the different 
spellings of such words as ' fulfil,' ^ plough,' etc. 

The Masorites, superstitiously punctilious 
as they were, became, in the Providence of God, 
guardians of the text of sacred scripture. 
They counted, classified and recorded, verses, 
words, and even letters, so that the Bible has 
come down to us with a text purer and more 
certain than that of any other ancient book. 
In the manuscripts of Terence, and within a 
much less space than our New Testament, Dr. 
Bentley found 20,000 various lections, and 
affirmed his belief that upon further search he 
would more than double the number of such 
discoveries. 

In the manuscripts, collated for Griesbach's 
Testament, 150,000 various readings occur. 
Yet it is remarkable that, notwithstanding 
these hundreds of thousands of variations, the 
substance of scripture is not, by any of them, 
or by all of them together, materially affected; 
not one article of faith, not one moral duty, 
not one theological doctrine, not one essential 
truth, is in the slightest modified. The varia- 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 63 

tions are mostly trivial, relating mainly to the 
names, numbers, dates, or to the letters of words. 
And the grand result is that, with the exception 
of perhaps from a dozen to twenty verses, the 
text of every chapter, paragraph and even sen- 
tence of scripture, is now so firmly settled that 
only the meaning is open to doubt or dispute. 
Compare this result with the results of the 
study of Shakesperian manuscripts. See Haley, 

p. 47. 

II. These discrepancies serve to 
awaken and stimttlate intellectual inqniry 
and investigation. It is the study which 
these apparent disagreements have made 
necessary, by which we have been led to 
the discovery of the purest text. 

As variations were found, they naturally 
compelled a searching and scholarly compari- 
son of all extant manuscripts. To ascertain 
the exact date and source of each manuscript, 
to investigate into the period of its origin and 
the claims which it possessed to recognition, 
caused a vast expenditure of learning, time 
and pains. And the consequence is that, as 
families have traced their lineage for ages, into 
a remote past, so we have developed a new and 
distinct science, that may be called the '' Gene- 



64 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

alogy of the Manuscripts!' Compare West- 
cott and Hort's Introduction to the New Test- 
ament. 

III. These discrepancies furthermore 
teach us that, valuable as is the letter of 
scripture, the trtith which it conveys is of 
vastly higher importance. 

God permitted slight variations to find their 
way into the text, while He preserved the 
testimony of all the manuscripts essentially 
uniform, unvarying and consistent ; and thus 
we are led to look supremely, not at the diver- 
gence, but at the convergence of their testi- 
mony in one burning focal point of harmo- 
nious truth. 

IV. These discrepancies have estab- 
lisJied the Indep evidence aad Lttegrzty of 
the sacred writers. 

There may be too close a correspondence in 
the testimony of witnesses ; what was intended 
to confirm may thus tend to condemn. The 
entire absence of seeming collision, even in 
trifling details or minutiae, argues intentional 
collusion, or conspiracy to deceive. 

In courts of law, evidence, given by different 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 65 

parties, which exactly and minutely agrees, is 
presumptive proof of a previous arrangement. 
For instance, in New Bedford, the famous 
*' Rowland will " case involved $2,000,000, 
and $150,000 were spent in costs of a trial 
extending over two years. The whole issue 
turned upon the resemblance between two 
signatures both of which were claimed as 
Miss Howland^s. So precisely, however, did 
the second match the first, that it was held to 
be a forged imitation. 

Those who cavil at slight variations in the 
gospel narratives, forget that the test of truthful 
testimony on the part of witnesses, is substan- 
tial agreement with circumstantial variations, 

V. These discrepancies have rather 
proven the real vahce of the Word of God, 

For more than fifteen centuries the com- 
plete Bible has been the target of malignant, 
bitter hostility and assault. Every expedient 
of learning as well as ridicule has been ex- 
hausted to overthrow it. It has been sub- 
jected to microscopic scrutiny, and yet these 
insignificant * defects,* as they are assumed to 
be by the enemies of the truth and by some so- 
called friends, are all that can be found to 
justify the opposition to the Bible as the 
inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God ! 



66 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

Rev. J. H. Brookes, D. D., of St. Louis, once 
offered $500.00 reward to any one who would 
point out a single irreconcilable contradiction 
in the Word of God. After four weeks' study a 
sceptic claimed the reward : he had made the 
great discovery, and here it is : 

'' Matthew xii. 30. He that is not with me 
is against me." 

'' Luke ix. 50. He that is not against us is 
for us (!!)." 

VL These discrepancies are used of 
God to instruct the docile believer. 

Christ told his disciples that he used 
Parables so that truth might at once be 
veiled from the unteachable and yet re- 
vealed to the obedient and docile. For 
the same reason God uses contradictions. 
Paradoxes are parables; by the very 
contrariety which they exhibit they stim- 
ulate thought, and arouse curiosity ; by 
the effort to reconcile them we are some- 
times more profited than by any mere 
comparison of similar statements. Com- 
pare John XV. 15, and xvi. 12. 

Prophetic paradoxes serve also another use : 
they are designed as Enigmas, presenting a 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 6/ 

mystery to be afterwards solved by the event. 
Thus the mystery which they suggest becomes 
a lock^ to which history becomes the key ; and 
the perfect fitting of key and lock proves a 
divine hand in both the prophecy and the his- 
tory. Compare Ezek. xii. 13, with Jer. xxxix. 

Proverbial paradoxes compel reflection by 
their apparent divergence, just as views in a 
stereoscope often make necessary a fixed and 
patient gaze, in order to bring the two pictures 
into harmony and unity. We find after care- 
ful study that the two members of a paradox 
are evidently meant to balance each other, 
each helping to limit, extend, qualify or modify 
its complementary member. They present 
extremes between which we are to find the 
golden mean of truth, as the mariner finds it 
his safe course to steer midway between two 
headlands, or as the mechanician produces a 
resultant by using two forces which act at 
right angles to each other. (See Haley.) 

VII. These discrepancies also become 
a test of the candor and genuineness of 
the Bible reader or student. 

The great Teacher presented truth in forms 
suited to attract the truth lover, but to repel 
the hypocritical and insincere. His teaching 



68 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

thus became a sifting process, separating the 
real from the nominal followers. See John vi. 
35-69. In this case those who heard Christ's 
words *^ murmured at him," "strove among 
themselves,'' called them '' hard sayings," were 
" offended," and some " went back and walked 
no more with him." Yet it will be seen that, 
with every increase of their opposition, Christ, 
instead of modifying and mollifying his teach- 
ing, rather increased its apparent severity. He 
knew that each concession to unbelief and an 
unteachable spirit, would only embolden the 
demand for new concessions. When the 
disobedient stumbled at his saying, instead of 
retracting or qualifying his statement, he at 
least repeated it, in even in its obnoxious form. 
Compare John iii. 3-7. 

Our Lord seemed to give, to such as sought 
it, an occasion of stumbling. When modern 
teachers find any statement of truth, such as 
the sovereignty of God, an occasion of offence 
to a hearer, they make haste to soften and 
qualify it. Just now the church universal is 
busy revising creeds, as though to adapt them 
to the demands of a worldly type of christian 
character, and a rationalistic spirit. Let us 
remember that by every concession we make 
reason bolder in its demand that everything 
shall be squared to its measure. Christ in pur- 
suing just the contrary course taught his 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 69 

hearers to bow implicitly and submit with 
docility to the truth — or else he left them to 
stumble over it and fall and be broken. 

VIII. Thus these discrepancies also 
discipline the trtte believer to yield a7i tin- 
questioning obedience to the truth. 

Reason has its province : (a) to determine 
upon rational grounds of evidence whether or 
not the Bible be the word of God ; (b) then to 
determine what that word teaches ; and (c) 
what are the relations or bearings of its teach- 
ing upon one's self and one's duty. Beyond this 
the province of reason ceases, and the province 
of faith and obedience begins. For instance 
prophecy is of great significance and conse- 
quence, as it is one^ if not the main one, of 
those ^^ seven seals *' set by God as His sanction 
upon His Word. Other evidences may appeal 
to believers as more satisfactory, but these 
evidences demand faith for their recognition, 
reception and appreciation. When an inquirer 
comes, in doubt and darkness, to the Bible, to 
find proofs that it is the Word of God, and 
therefore has a claim on his faith, predictive 
prophecy is God's grand appeal to his reason. 
** We have also a more sure word of prophecy, 
whereunto ye do well that ye take heed as unto 
a light that shineth in a dark place, until 



JO STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

the day dawn and the day star arise in your 
hearts/' 

In fact our perception of truth largely de- 
pends upon our spiritual attainment. Hence 
paradoxes are often reconciled by simple obed- 
ience. Jno. vii. 17. By doing His will we 
come to know the doctrine. There is a hid- 
den harmony — a higher harmony that is hid- 
den from us — until we yield up our whole soul 
and self to God for service, and yield up our 
whole heart and mind to truth in rever- 
ence. 

Many so called discrepancies are due to the 
disposition and determination of unfair and 
uncandid critics ; ^^ aut inveniam discrepentia^n 
aut faciamy What Whately says about wise 
men and fools may be said about objectors : 
It is easier to ask, than to answer, a question, 
and many a man can present a difficulty who 
could not remove it. 

In Voltaire's library a Swedish traveler found 
Calmet's Commentary, with slips of paper in- 
serted, on which all the difficulties Calmet had 
treated were carefully noted, but not one of 
the answers and solutions whereby he met and 
refuted them. 

Prof. Henry Rogers says, that Strauss* 
*' Life of Jesus '* should be called, *^ a collection 
of all the difficulties and discrepancies which 
honest criticism has discovered, or perverted 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 7 1 

ingenuity imagined, in the four evangelists/* 
Haley 27, 28. 

Thus what veils truth from carnal minds 
may reveal it to the spiritual : and the same doc- 
trine that is a stiimbling stone to the unbeliever 
is a stepping stone to the believer, i Pet. ii. 8. 

IX. The obscurity of scripture is pro- 
bably made to serve to godless readers a 
judieial end. . 

The captious, cavilling critic is punished by 
finding the very snares which he seeks, and 
falling into them. Perhaps he tries to make 
faith impossible in others, and ends by making 
his own mind simply a nest of objections, a 
perch for the unclean birds of doubt and de- 
nial of truth, so that faith can find no resting 
place in himself. He tries in a dishonest spirit 
to prove the Word of God a human fraud and 
falsehood, and is himself given over by God to 
believe what at the beginning he knew was a 
lie. He, who did not like to retain God in his 
knowledge, and who held down the truth in 
unrighteousness, and sought to turn the truth 
of God into a lie, is given over to a reprobate 
mind. The Judge of all abandons him to 
strong delusion. 

X. Where all attempts at explanation 
or reconciliation fail, the believer must 



72 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

learn patioitly to wait for the further 
light which dissolves all doubt. 

This introduces another department 
of the subject, which the author has exten- 
sively treated in another work entitled 
" Many Infallible Proofs." 

The investigation into discrepancies 
has served to reveal hundreds and thou- 
sands of ao^reements which would not 
otherwise have been disclosed, and which 
are truly wonderful as the evidences of 
the divine authorship of the Bible, as well 
as of the integrity of the human agents 
which the Spirit of God employed in its 
production. 

The Bible has been decried and derided as 
in hopeless opposition to science and irrecon- 
cilable conflict with modern discover}'. But 
the further the investigation is carried the 
more marvelous proves the agreement be- 
tween the word of God and the most advanced 
certainties attained by science. 

The substantial agreement between the storj'- 
of the creation and the discoveries of geology ; 
the word '* firmament '' or expanse , as applied 
to the space between the heavens and the 
earth ; the order of creation, from the lowest 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 73 

types to the highest — fish, reptile, bird, mam- 
mal, man ; the countless number of the stars 
(Jer. xxxiii. 22) , the four supports of Hfe — • 
brain, lungs, heart, nervous system, with the 
circulation of the blood (Eccles. xii. 6, f) ; the 
nature of light, as called forth, not** made*' 
(Gen. i.); and as a mode of motion or vibration 
akin to sound or music (Job xxxviii. 7, Ps. 
Ixv. 8, — Hebrew^ to give forth bvirations — Ps. 
xix. etc.) ; these are a very few of the startling 
agreements between the Bible and scientific 
facts not known by man until long after the 
Bible was complete ! 

Modern believing scientists may well ask, 
how the infidel can account for such anticipa- 
tions of modern discovery. Compare Ps. cxix. 
32, with the fact that the staghound, fleetest 
in chase, has the largest heart, in comparison to 
his size, of any animal. The ant's brain is 
entirely composed of the gray matter, whose 
preponderance in the brain is the measure of 
intelligence. Compare Prov. vi. 6. The agri- 
cultural ant does prepare a harvest — as recent 
investigation shows — and Solomon did not 
blunder in taking for grain the ant eggs or 
pupae. Compare Prov. xxx. 25. Man was 
made of the dust of the ground — and the most 
recent analysis shows his identity in material 
substance with the ground on which he treads, 
etc., etc. Compare Gen. i. and ii. 



74 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

To those who wish to examine the wonder- 
ful agreement of the Bible with the facts of 
history — one of the foremost of sciences — we 
commend the careful study of propliecy, even 
to its minute details, for the minute details of 
prophecy are vital to the prophetic proofs ; it 
is these minutiae that remove a prediction from 
the realm of sagacious human forecast into 
that of divinely inspired foresight. It is these 
also that make the difference between the law of 
'' simple " and of ^^ compound probability." 
Every single prediction has but a half eliance 
of fulfillment ; and hence every additional de- 
tail halves again the possibility of a mere 
accidental accomplishment. In the Old Testa- 
ment the predictions concerning Messiah, which 
are most indisputable as predictions, because 
most undeniably remote from the events which 
they foretell, are also the most astonishingly 
minute in their details. The late Canon Lid- 
don, in his famous Bampton lectures, gives 
three hundred and thirty-three particulars, 
prophesied about Messiah, and all meeting in 
him alone. By the law of compound prob- 
ability we must raise one-half to its three 
hundred and thirty-second power to get the 
insignificant fraction which represents the pos- 
sibility of a chance fulfillment ; that fraction 
will have, as its numerator, a unit, and its 
denominator wuU reach ninety-four places! 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 75 

Who audaciously dares to say that the slightest 
particular is of no consequence ? The ances- 
tral line, the exact place, time, and circum- 
stances of Christ's birth, with hundreds of 
most curiously minute marks, go to make up 
and complete that Old Testament portrait- 
ure of the ^^ Coming One ; '* and, even when 
Christ hung upon the cross, he could not say, 
" It is finished I " and expire, until the last 
and least Scripture should '^ be fulfilled ; '' and 
so He said, '' I thirst ! " And yet that forecast 
of his dying agony was not in a formal predic- 
tion, but in a Psalm, a poem whose true mean- 
ing is read only when in its jewelled cavern 
the Light of the World is set ! 

In a portrait, the entire fidelity of the re- 
semblance may depend upon 07ie line which 
changes or determines that subtle thing called 
^^ expression ! " One delicate touch on the eye- 
brow, the turn or curve of an almost invisible 
line about the mouth, a tinge or a shade of 
color on the cheek, a vein in the forehead, one 
dainty stroke in that concave of the upper lip — 
these make the difference between the work of 
the master artist and his amateur pupils. And 
the Holy Ghost proves himself the Divine 
Artist, more if possible by his most minute 
and delicate strokes and touches than by 
his bolder and more conspicuous outlines. 
What was, at first, a drawing without color, 



76 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

at last becomes a complete, recognizable por- 
trait. 

CONCLUSION. 

The grand purpose and aim we have 
had in view in this little book, has been 
to exalt the sttpremacy of scripture. 
Various attempts are making, in these 
days, to impair confidence in the claim of 
the Bible to be the Inspired and Infalli- 
ble Word of God, and the supreme guide 
in faith and duty. We are in the midst 
of the war of the ages, and the enemy is 
assaulting the center and stronghold of 
the Christian religion ; for with its Sacred 
Book is inseparably bound up its Sacred 
Person, 

Some of the friends of the Bible seek to 
accommodate themselves to the positions of 
its foes, by giving up the infallibility and in- 
errancy of the scripture, and conceding that 
there are ^* mistakes "and even ** immorali- 
ties " in the Bible ; but such defenders of the 
Word of God claim that its inspiration is to be 
found not in the '* words " but the *' concept." 

We regard this position as wholly untena- 
ble, and as a virtual surrender of the Bible as 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. J J 

a Divine Book. And we lift up a warning 
against such views, by whomsoever promul- 
gated. 

The contents of this Book of Books are 
especially made emphatic in its very title, 
^* The Word of God.*' Repeatedly does the 
expression occur, " Words which I command 
thee," etc. Paul echoes the Old Testament 
sentiment in the New : ^' which things also we 
speak, 7iot in words which mans wisdom teach- 
ethy but which the Holy Ghost teacheth!' And 
he adds, '* comparing spiritual things with 
spiritual,'* which, by not a few, is regarded as 
a simple expansion of the meaning i. e., ** ex- 
pressing spiritual truths in spiritual forms.** 

Wordsworth says, '^ Language is the incar- 
nation of thought.'* Burke regarded every 
word in a sentence as one of the feet on which 
the sentence walks ; and said that, to alter a 
word, change it for a longer or shorter one, or 
give it a different position, might change the 
whole course of the sentence. There are in 
the Bible thousands of cases in which the 
accuracy of the "concept** depends on the ex- 
actness of the ^^ word,** and even of the shade 
of meaning which it conveys and by which it 
is separated from others of its class. When 
God sought to convey to man an adequate 
** concept ** of spiritual truth, the task was the 
more difficult from the fact that heavenly 



78 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

things were to be conveyed to earthly minds 
and through earthly channels. How could 
even God impart a knowledge of such matters 
without leaving the door open to serious, if 
not fatal, error, unless he guided, at least by 
supervision and control, the very words in 
which divine conceptions were clothed ? 

No reader of the New Testament Greek 
needs to be told that the whole Epistle to the 
Romans turns on a single word {diKaLoavvrj) ; 
and so important is it that the reader shall not 
misunderstand that word, and the exact sense 
in which it is employed, that in Rom. iii. 25 
-26, the meaning is exactly and repeatedly de- 
fined, *^To declare, I say, at this time his 
righteousness : that He might be just and the 
justifier of him that believethin Jesus." That 
is righteousness, in the sense of this epistle. 
Are we to be told that the concept is the 
inspired thing, not the word ? How are we 
to get the true concept apart from the right 
word ? To form a wrong conception of justifi- 
cation, as here used, is to misconceive that 
doctrinal truth which lies at the very basis of 
our salvation. There are over five thousand 
instances in Old and New Testaments where 
the most important distinctions hang on the 
choice of a particular word, and no other, 
however like it, will suffice. 

It is unsafe to make the Bible and the 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 79 

Church, and the human Reason joint, or co-ordi- 
nate, sources of divine authority. Both the 
Church and Reason are authoritative only as 
they are conformed to, and are confirmed by, 
the Word of God. The voice of our rational 
powers, and even the communis consensus 
ChristianoruMy like the fallible standards of 
weights and measures, need correction by the 
infallible, as the watch is regulated by the 
chronometer, and even the chronometer by 
God's clock, the stars. The mariner dares not 
follow even his compass as an absolute guide, 
lest he lose his course, if not his vessel. The 
needle may have intensity of directive force 
and susceptibility, but it has its variations; 
the magnetic pole must be corrected by the 
celestial pole. Reason and conscience, and 
even the verdict of the Church, all belong to 
the human and fallible, and we must steer by 
the constellations. 

The sitpre^nacy of the Word of God is the 
last great truth which is the Palladium of 
Church and the believer. When that falls, all 
else falls with it No disaster is too great to 
follow the destruction of that safeguard of 
Protestantism. And we should look well be- 
fore we admit any teaching which actually 
surrenders this inmost citadel of our faith, or 
even by implication weakens or lessens the 
absolute supremacy of the word of God. 



80 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED 

We therefore earnestly ask all who 
wish to know the truth and find the hid- 
den treasures of the Word, not to be 
kept from a thorough exploration of its 
hidden beauties by any apparent and 
superficial discordancies and disagree- 
ments. These are but the iron gates 
that seem forbidding but that yield to 
the touch of a reverent and obedient 
spirit and admit us to the '' House Beau- 
tiful/' 

And a Beautiful Palace it is, ''built 
upon the foundation of the apostles and 
Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the 
chief corner-stone." In formation^ com- 
posed of the most precious materials 
faintly typified in the cedar and shittim 
woods, and the gold, silver and precious 
stones. In constrttction, it follows the 
law of a divine unity and archetypal 
beauty. In completeness, it is divinely 
perfect. The believer finds all his wants 
and cravings met. In its refectory it has 
milk for babes, and the manna, the meat, 
the honey, for strong men ; in its lavatory 
are the fountains of the water and the 



FROM THE WORD OF GOD, 8 1 

blood, that cleanse and sanctify ; in its 
pharmacy, the balm of Gilead and the 
panacea for all ills of sin ; in its armory, 
the whole panoply of God ; in its gallery, 
the portraits of the prophets, patriarchs, 
apostles and saints ; in its oratory, the 
altars of sacrifice and incense, prayer and 
praise ; in its conservatory, the celestial 
plants that bloom in the paradise of God; 
and in its observatory, the outlook into 
the very heavens, where we may behold 
the face of God. 

Blessed is he who enters into all the 
wonders of God's *' House Beautiful'' 
whose vestibule is so low and whose doors 
are so narrow that only the humble and 
obedient soul, who bows as he goes in, 
can enter at all; and whose inmost 
wonders are to be seen only in the clear 
light of the Holy Spirit's guidance, who 
with celestial lamps illumines the secrets 
of God to him who, in dependence on the 
great Interpreter, searches the scrip- 
tures. 

With the prayer that each reader may 
learn to find in what, to the profane and 



82 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED. 

godless, are a stone of stumbling and a 
rock of offence, the stepping stones to 
higher knowledge and faith, the author 
bids his reader 



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